Prior to the filming of A Bird in the Head, 41-year-old Curly Howard had endured a series of minor strokes, which adversely affected his performance, leading to slurred speech and slower timing.

Initially elated at the opportunity to direct, Bernds was dismayed to discover the extent of Curly's deteriorated condition, a fact that Columbia's head of short subjects and director, Jules White, had failed to disclose.

In later years, Bernds recounted the challenging experience he faced during the production of A Bird in the Head:[2] "It was an awful tough deal for a novice rookie director to have a Curly who wasn't himself.

To mitigate this risk, producer Hugh McCollum rearranged the release schedule, allowing the more successful Micro-Phonies to premiere first, thereby solidifying Bernds's position as a director.

[3] The television print distributed by Screen Gems in the late 1950s omitted a scene in which Curly and the gorilla consume alcohol in the laboratory and subsequently experience humorous aftereffects.